So Much Fun at the 2014 Thai Youth Theatre Festival

Right around this time last year, my group, Thailand 125, watched videos made by the group before us that advertised all the different committees of volunteers working here in Thailand. They ranged from HIV/AIDS Outreach committee to the Project Resource Committee to Sticky Rice Newsletter to the Thai Youth Theatre Project Committee. I was drawn to a number of them, and applied for quite a few and was selected to be an editor of the volunteer produced newsletter Sticky Rice and to be the Deputy Director of Public Relations for the Thai Youth Theatre Committee.

A group of my students have been preparing to perform at the annual Festival, the culminating event of the TYT Project, which was this past weekend. Nearly 140 students from 13 different communities came together in Lopburi to learn about singing, dancing, mask making, shadow puppets and sword fighting and to perform a short play entirely in English that they had prepared in front of the rest of the participants. I’ll let the pictures from this weekend speak for themselves. more “So Much Fun at the 2014 Thai Youth Theatre Festival”

Preparing for the Thai Youth Theatre Festival

Ten years ago, some Peace Corps Thailand volunteers in tandem with some British volunteers recognized the benefit of learning and confidence building through the performing arts. They worked with their Thai counterparts and students to adapt a Shakespearean play to be performed in their local communities. After the success of the local performances, they came together for the Bangkok Shakespeare Festival. That initial festival was such a success that they decided to make it an annual event and the Thai Youth Theatre Project was founded.

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